Republicans will seek to withhold funding from the
Interior Department
unless it stops limiting new
oil
and
gas
leasing on federal lands, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman said.
Westerman, whose committee has jurisdiction over the department, took issue with its implementation of the federal oil and gas leasing program during President Joe Biden’s tenure and said he would work with the Appropriations Committee to cut funding to the Interior and its subagencies if they don’t hold lease sales more regularly.
“They need some oversight, and if they don’t change course, that’s what a lot of discussion was last week, then there will be language written into the funding bill next time that says you don’t get your money,” Westerman told the Washington Examiner. “That’s the only recourse Congress has.”
“They’ve got to follow the law, or they don’t get the money. That’s how it’s supposed to work, and I don’t know how else to get their attention,” Westerman added.
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Republicans have been angered by the Biden administration’s oil and gas leasing policies, which were shaped out of the gate by a moratorium on new leasing ordered during Biden’s first week in office.
A mix of industry groups and Republican-led states filed lawsuits against the leasing pause, and the pause was ultimately tossed after first being enjoined by a federal district court in one of the cases.
The Biden administration in November 2021 commenced with its first lease sale, one in the Outer Continental Shelf, following the preliminary injunction, which was imposed that summer.
The Bureau of Land Management, which handles onshore leasing for the Interior, held its first series of lease sales under Biden in June 2022 and cited the ruling. The lease sales shrank the total acreage offered compared to what had been proposed.
Biden made a series of pledges to restrict new oil and gas development on federal lands during his presidential campaign, and the new leasing has angered many green groups.
More than 300 environmental and other nongovernmental organizations sent a letter to the Interior Department on Wednesday expressing disappointment that it hasn’t done more to blunt oil and gas development on federal lands.
The groups
urged
the Interior to approve no new offshore lease sales and to begin phasing out oil and gas production on federal lands.
Leasing under Biden has occurred less frequently than under his predecessors, but leasing activities have picked up since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats’ green energy and healthcare spending bill.
The law required the Interior to carry out three offshore lease sales it
canceled
last May, and the department has already held one of the sales. The other two are to be carried out this year.
The Inflation Reduction Act also tied the development of renewable energy on federal lands and in federal waters, a priority of Biden’s, to the continued leasing of acreage for oil and gas. The leasing provisions were included at the demand of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), a centrist who supports more oil and gas production.
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Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has
begun planning
the next round of onshore lease sales and is eyeing spring for the first sales while at the same time
putting new strictures on leasing
. All new leasing will be covered by higher rent and royalty rates, which were also raised by the Inflation Reduction Act.
